New York Mayor Bill de Blasio on Friday announced that all nonessential permitted events throughout the city for the month of May will officially be canceled, citing parades, concerts, rallys and other large gatherings.
“We love those events, but what do we know about those events? It inherently means large numbers of people crowded together in a pretty small space. That’s New York City. That’s who we are, but, guess what? That goes against everything that we need to do to fight back the coronavirus,” de Blasio told reporters Friday.

Thursday marked a new record for coronavirus deaths in the U.S., with 4,591 people dying from the virus in just 24 hours.
The prior record was 2,569 deaths in the U.S. on Wednesday, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of data from Johns Hopkins University.
The number of new coronavirus cases on Thursday was approximately the same as Wednesday, with 31,451 new confirmed infections across the country, according to the outlet.
Read more at The Hill.
{Matzav.com}

The death toll from the coronavirus pandemic in the United States approached 31,000 on Wednesday as governors began cautiously preparing Americans for a post-virus life that would likely include public face coverings as the “new normal.”
The governors of Connecticut, Maryland, New York and Pennsylvania each issued orders or recommendations that residents wear face masks as they emerge from isolation in the coming weeks.
“If you are going to be in public and you cannot maintain social distancing, then have a mask, and put that mask on,” said New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat.
Similar orders were imposed in New Jersey and Los Angeles last week and face coverings were recommended by Kansas Governor Laura Kelly on Tuesday.

[1696]באר_הפרשה_שמיני (1)

An American patient diagnosed with the coronavirus (COVID-19) has been given a treatment by Israeli-based Pluristem that, so far, has a 100 percent survival rate.
The development, which occurred under Israel’s compassionate-use program, comes days after the company released preliminary data showing that six critically ill coronavirus patients in the Jewish state who are considered high-risk received the Haifa-based company’s placental cell-therapy treatment and survived one week later.
The patient, whose condition was similar to the Israeli ones, was treated with Pluristem’s PLX cell therapy at Holy Name Medical Center in New Jersey, where the company is conducting a Phase III critical limb ischemia study.

The IRS is delivering stimulus payments to Americans to help offset some of the personal financial strain caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
If you’re getting one, Business Insider tells you: Don’t worry: It doesn’t reduce your tax refund, and you won’t have to pay taxes on it.
The one-time payment — labeled by the government’s relief bill as a “recovery rebate” and called an “economic impact payment” by the IRS — is technically a refundable tax credit meant to offset your 2020 federal income taxes. That’s the return taxpayers will file next spring for income earned this year.

Many Americans woke up Wednesday expecting to find a payment of $1,200 or more from the U.S. government in their bank account, but instead they realized nothing had arrived yet – or the wrong amount was deposited. Parents of young children complained they did not receive the promised $500 check for their dependent children.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin has instructed the Internal Revenue Service to get payments out as fast as possible to help offset the pain of losing jobs and shutting down businesses, but numerous glitches – affecting filers who used tax preparers, parents of dependent children and people with 2019 tax returns still to be processed – are delaying payments and causing confusion.

Imposing a stricter measure to control the spread of the coronavirus, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said that starting today. he is requiring people in New York to wear masks or face coverings in public whenever social distancing was not possible, the NY Times reports.
The order took effect today and applies to people who are unable to keep six feet away from others in public settings, such as on a bus or subway, on a crowded sidewalk or inside a grocery store.
“Stopping the spread is everything,” Mr. Cuomo said during his daily briefing in Albany. “How can you not wear a mask when you’re going to come close to a person?”
Cuomo said local governments would enforce the order, but he noted that riders without face coverings would not be ejected from public transit.